A cult hero from Boston, Nat Freedberg has recorded with The Titanics, The Clamdiggers, The Flies…and likely lots of other acts labelled with the definitive article. Always a champion of a natural sound, his best works have a very old spirit and the best bits of 2019’s ‘Better Late Than Never’ could stand alongside Strange Majik in terms of exuding an all-round retro cool…at least on musical terms.
DEAD SOUL ALLIANCE – Slaves To The Apocalype
With ‘Slaves To The Apocalypse’, Dead Soul Alliance pledge a firm allegiance with very old school death metal. Since its six songs have little interest in blending pure pneumatics and low end growls with anything too far away from a more palatable Slayer-ish riff or two, even in metal terms, you could even say they’ve become slaves to their own chosen genre. For those who enjoy a bit of straight death, though, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing since these six songs are so tautly arranged, it’s hard to find any real fault with DSA’s talents for the extreme.
Cherry Red Records to release various Dinosaur Jr. deluxe editions in September
On September 27th, Cherry Red Records will reissue all four of Dinosaur Jr.’s albums on deluxe 2CD sets and coloured vinyl editions.
The band’s albums following Lou Barlow’s departure and running from 1991’s ‘Green Mind’ to 1997’s ‘Hand It Over’ represents the band’s most commercial period. At their peak, the band cracked the UK top 40 singles chart with ‘Start Choppin’ and ‘Feel The Pain’, the latter becoming a staple for alternative compilations for a time.
ROXY BLUE – Roxy Blue
With overtones of Warrant, Trixter and other vaguely sleazy bands, Roxy Blue’s 1992 debut album ‘Want Some’ became a firm favourite among fans of the glammier end of the melodic rock scale. With a really catchy set of songs and solid musicianship, it was the kind of album that deserved better than just cult status. Over the passing decades, it’s never seemed to get the same rose tinted love as, say, Warrant’s ‘Dog Eat Dog’, It’s Alive’s ‘Earthquake Visions’ or Kingofthehill, but if approached in the right mood, it’s every bit as good as other similar stuff from the period. Disappearing not long after, Roxy Blue seemed destined to join Outlaw Blood, Warp Drive and countless others in the “one album band” stakes. Despite frontman Todd Poole continuing to write songs, as the next few years came and went, they seemed about as likely to record a second album as Ted Nugent becoming a progressive minded vegan.
FANGZ – For Nothing EP
Although sometimes closer to trashy hard rock than straight punk or pop punk, this debut EP from Sydney’s self-proclaimed “party punks” is the kind of recording that grabs the attention straight away, regardless of genre preference. With a primary goal (in the band’s own words) of “getting people to drink beer and do backflips in mosh pits”, there’s always got an interest in stoking up good times, so you might expect something tossed off and frivolous…but the reality is far more complex. Digging deeper into the songs themselves, ‘For Nothing’ is the kind of debut that shows off a band that understands the benefits of a strong arrangement. Nothing here feels hacked out or too simple and yet the songs still value the kind of directness that’s capable of pulling in the listener from the very first spin.